Crew Abilities

Ship Combat is a core gameplay mechanic in Star Trek Timelines, and a key part of Ship Combat are the abilities your crew bring to the battle. As captains of a starship, players may build and upgrade two dozen different ships, from common ships like the Constellation Class to Legendary ships like the Borg Scout Ship. Those ships may be used in Missions, or in the Battle Arena. Alongside those ships are hundreds of crew, who provide all sorts of abilities for your ships.

Crew Ability Overview
Crew Abilities are broken down into two types: Standard abilities and special abilities. All abilities only apply when a crew member is tapped in combat, and only for a period of time.

Standard abilities are the primary stat modifiers that you see on the crew’s portrait. It’s what you should think of when you see a red “+5” next to a crew. This ability increases the stats of your ship while it’s active. All crew have an inherent ability.

Special abilities are specific actions that occur when that crew is activated. Some crew provide a one-time damage bonus; others may modify your crit rating or crit bonus. Some crew may not have any special abilities at all.

Many special abilities are triggered only when your ship has the capability of Cloaking, Positional, or Booarding, and that ship feature has been activated. For an overview which ships can provide which triggers, see ships.

Your crew also have Initialize, Cooldown, and Duration. The crew’s Initialize is how long from the beginning of the battle you need to wait until you can use their ability. This means that an initial warm-up of 15s prevents me from using that crew for the first 15s. Cooldown is how long you need to wait after using the crew for them to recharge. And Duration is how long their ability stays active.

NOTE: Some crew abilities come with a penalty as well. For example, a crew ability may increase Attack by 3, but at a cost of reducing your Evasion by 1. Look for the details by tapping and holding on your crew’s ability, or when slotting them into your Battle Stations.

Equipment Bonuses
Your ship’s crew slots have a bonus. If you slot a crew member that meets that bonus, they will apply an equipment bonus to your ship. This equipment bonus is a passive bonus that applies to your ship while it is in combat. It is only active if you match a crew member of the correct type with the ships slot type. You may still slot different crew in that spot, but they will not give their equipment bonus.

Activating Crew Abilities of the Same Type
When adding crew to your Battle Stations, you’re able to slot in crew with the same type of standard ability. That means, if you wanted to, you could slot in four crew that all changed your Attack stats. What happens when you attempt to use those crew at the same time?

First, the crew with the highest value gets applied to your ship. When activating two crew at the same time that have the same type of bonus, the highest value is applied to your ship.

Second, this is recalculated if an ability ends, so if you had two crew who applied a bonus of 9 and 7, and the 9 bonus ended but the 7 bonus continued, you would see your ship attack increase by 9, then decrease to 7 when the higher value crew ended their ability.

Third, changes to your ship’s stats from your crew don’t stack. If you had three crew activated, and all three modified your attack, only the change from the highest value crew would be applied. NOTE: Specific crew abilities, like one-time damage increases or modifiers, would still affect your ship even if the crew’s primary stat isn’t applied.